 Innovation and Productivity: Evidence from Six Latin American CountriesGustavo Crespi and Pluvia Zuniga World Development, 2012, vol. 40, issue 2, 273-290 Abstract: This study examines the determinants of technological innovation and its impact on firm labor productivity across Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, and Uruguay) using micro data from innovation surveys. In line with the literature, in all countries firms that invest in knowledge are more able to introduce new technological advances and those that innovate have greater labor productivity than those that do not. Yet firm-level determinants of innovation investment are much more heterogeneous than in OECD countries. Cooperation, foreign ownership, and exporting increase the propensity to invest in innovation activities and encourage innovation investment in only half of the countries studied. Scientific and market sources of information have little or no impact on firm innovation efforts, which illustrates the weak linkages that characterize national innovation systems in those countries. The results in terms of productivity, however, highlight the importance of innovation in enabling firms to improve economic performance and catch up. Keywords: innovation; productivity; developing countries; Latin America; innovation surveys (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:40:y:2012:i:2:p:273-290 DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2011.07.010 Access Statistics for this article World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes More articles in World Development from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.